February 24th, 2024

Trade unions have stood up across the world against Russia’s aggression

Two years have passed since Russia launched its military aggression in Ukraine. It is time for working people to stand up in unity under the banner ‘No to Putin’s war!’

At this very moment, mass rallies and demonstrations are being held in many places across Europe, in Paris, London and other major cities. Trade unions themselves have stood up, raising their voices: ‘No more barbarities of Putler (Putin-Hitler)!’ and ‘Don’t leave Ukraine fighting alone!’

A wide-spread united action of European workers is being realized. This presumably owes much to the call from the Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Ukraine (KVPU) and the assiduous activities of the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine (ENSU).

The KVPU appeals:
‘We reiterate that KVPU members continue to resist and fight for freedom and peace in our country.’ ‘Your support is not just a symbol of international sisterhood but a beacon of hope and resilience for every Ukrainian enduring the horrors of this war.’

ENSU calls on the world for action:
‘The Ukrainian people refuse to be passive victims of this aggression and are massively resisting the invasion, with and without arms.’ ‘... what its eventual victory over Putin will most represent is not a win for the Western side in the great-power struggle for global dominance, but a triumph for the Ukrainian people’s unyielding resistance and right to decide its future.’ ‘We call for making the week around 24 February a time of international action against the Russian invasion and in solidarity with Ukraine.’

Last year, on the first anniversary of the start of the aggression, 46 organizations from 20 countries actively responded to the appeal from the ENSU and achieved united action across the world. We the JRCL (RMF), too, joined the appeal. This year, we must create a bigger and stronger struggle to contain Putin the aggressor.

Denounce Putin’s crime of the century!

What is Putin’s war, in the first place? It is a war designed to eliminate Ukraine as an independent state, together with the Ukrainian nation, with the aim of incorporating it into Russian territory. This is the brutality of the century. The Russian rulers have launched this brutality out of ambition to revive the territory of the former USSR. They arrogantly claim the collapse of the USSR to be a ‘geopolitical catastrophe’ (Putin) despite the fact that ‘Soviet socialism’ (in fact, fake Marxism, i.e. Stalinism) had become synonymous with ‘tyranny and poverty’ and went to collapse (in 1991).

Putin is now jubilant about Western rulers’ move to end or reduce their support to Ukraine. With the presidential election near at hand, this haughty ‘tsar of Russia’ has excluded his rival candidate, who attempted to run with broad support from the masses, by picking holes in his procedures to deprive him of qualifications for candidacy. Putin even murdered, in a prison in Siberia, Aleksei Navalny, an opposition leader who exposed Putin’s lavish palace.

But, against these wicked acts like those of a mafia boss, Russian people have started raising their voices in various places: ‘No more of Putin’s tyranny’ and ‘Stop the war’.

Russian working people, remember what the Putin regime is! Those who rule today’s Russia were in the past Stalinist bureaucrats; they usurped the state property of the era of ‘Soviet socialism’ by every means possible, by using their statuses. These privileged bureaucrats now rule the authoritarian state of Russia under the control of the FSB [Federal Security Service]. These bureaucrats eliminate their opponents as warnings to others or often assassinate them secretly. Such methods are no different from those adopted in the former Soviet days. These privileged strata, just one per cent of the population, monopolize 75 per cent of the ‘wealth’ of the nation. This is also the same as in the Soviet era. That is why we say Putin, a ‘descendant of Stalin’, has committed the crime of the century.

Russian working people!

Putin is now commanding to continue and prolong the war. It is time to lift up your voice against the aggression in Ukraine, against the Putin regime. Toiling people in Ukraine, particularly those who are struggling in the van of the masses, do not look upon you, toiling people in Russia, as enemies. They clearly say that their enemies are Putin and his accomplices. They appeal to both Russian and Ukrainian people to march hand in hand.

We call on workers all over the world to create massive, powerful movements everywhere against Putin’s war. That will be the strongest encouragement to Russian people struggling under harsh repression and will serve as a decisive blow to Putin.

In solidarity with fighting Ukrainian people!

For two years, we the JRCL (RMF) have been promoting the Ukraine antiwar struggle with pride and responsibility as anti-Stalinist revolutionary leftists. At the same time, we have been exchanging ideas with fighting Ukrainian leftists. We sent our statements and writings, exchanged emails, and visited them for face-to-face discussions. We have also been fighting to defeat the shameless arguments of some of the Western leftists who are hostile to the Ukrainian resistance while spreading arguments that defend Putin.

‘NATO is worse than Putin since it is inciting Ukraine to war.’ ‘Let’s stop our governments sending weapons for the butchery in Ukraine.’ ― In these arguments, they even ignore who is invading and who is resisting it, i.e. Russia as a one-sided aggressor and Ukrainians fighting against it, thus taking hostile attitudes to the latter. Those are truly anti-proletarian, anti-Marxist and inhuman nonsense.

We say again. Ukrainian people continue fighting against the brutalities of the nuclear superpower of Russia. Don’t leave them isolated! The advanced part of the fighting Ukrainians are not only waging their resistance against the Russian aggression; they are also strengthening trade unions in opposition to neo-liberal policies taken by the Ukrainian government amid the protracted war. What they are fighting for is not a road that leads workers to the chain of capital but ‘truly democratic and truly peaceful socialism’. They are our proletarian brothers and sisters. The world working class must not leave them in isolation.

Let us overcome the degeneration of the existing leaderships and promote a mass antiwar struggle!

We must denounce the existing leaderships of opposition movements for their degenerate responses and resolutely fight in solidarity with fighting people in Ukraine.

The central leadership of the Japanese Communist Party is doing nothing more than feebly requesting the rulers of the states for ‘a global unity based on an agreement to respect for the United Nations Charter’. Among the ranks of this party, conscientious members who sympathize with the viewpoint of the JRCL (RMF) have appeared one after another. This has caused a big confusion to the JCP organization, so that this party has retreated from mass movements against the Russian aggression.

We appeal to all workers, students and citizens. Denounce and overcome such degenerate response by the JCP leaders! Let us create an enormous upsurge in the Ukraine antiwar struggle.

Some of the European leftists are insisting on ‘putting an end to military support to Ukraine’ while shouting ‘opposition to Netanyahu’s massacre of Palestinians in Gaza’. But both Putin and Netanyahu are the perpetrators of mass murder and, for this very reason, Ukrainian people in resistance have expressed their solidarity with Palestinians.

Let us advance the Ukraine antiwar struggle and at the same time promote mass struggles against the massacres in Gaza by the Zionist rulers of Israel. We must prevent them at all cost from launching an all-out offensive on Rafah in which 1.5 million people are evacuated.

Workers and students. In order to crush brutal wars and with the aim of overturning the ‘dark century’ and carving out a ‘world without war, exploitation or oppression’, fight arm in arm with us the JRCL (RMF)!